Kartoffelmaschine (Potato Machine) demonstrates both Polke's use of simple repeatedly incorporated the potato into two- and three-dimensional works. In this piece, a modified stool makes reference to Marcel Duchamp's Bicycle Wheel, an early icon of 20th-century sculpture that incorporated found objects. Here Polke transforms the ordinary: as one presses the button, the potato begins an orbit beneath the stool as if it were the center of the universe.